Medieval Cathedrals rock.

[Screaming Lord Byron]

Salisbury





Wells



Kings College, Oxford

[bif]

1. They fuckin' rule!

I've been to both of them.

[Screaming Lord Byron]

2. Which was most striking?

[bif]

7. I'd have to say Salisbury

It was more majestic. But King's was obviously more intricate. Actually, they were replacing some of the glass in Salisbury Cathedral and for a small donation you could etch your name on a piece of glass that would eventually be used on the cathedral So my name's up there somewhere!

[tigereye]

4. yes very beautiful

afternoon Byron. Well, here it's afternoon. :)

[Screaming Lord Byron]

5. Afternoon, tigereye.

[tigereye]

19. yeah if I could think of any more scintillating conversation

I would.

but after all those sex nonagons, I don't know if I can. My rantings about fishnets and black boots will only go so far.

[redqueen]

3. Aren't they something?

I'd love to visit one someday... thanks for the pics. :)

[Screaming Lord Byron]

6. How's this for a roof?

Sherborne Abbey.

http://www.pbase.com/mattis/image/32034408

[redqueen]

10. Fantastic

thanks again! :7

[YellowRubberDuckie]

8. People ask me dumb questions about why I'm converting to catholicism...

And I tell them because of the cathedrals. I've always wanted to get married in one. :eyes: Ask a dumb question, get a dumb answer.
Duckie

[pagerbear]

Actually, most of these are Anglican cathedrals

[Screaming Lord Byron]

24. True, but they're all pre-reformation.

[pagerbear]

26. Yes, you're right.

I was at St. Thomas for Evensong on Sunday and was moved to tears by the beautiful music and architecture and memories of singing in choirs like their traditional Anglican choir of boys and men.

[pagerbear]

22. Actually, most of these are Anglican cathedrals

[dancing kali]

28. High Anglican

from what I understand - the High Anglicans are basically Catholics without the Pope and a clergy that can marry. The US equivalent is the Episcopalian Church... after all the US founding fathers weren't into anything called Anglican or Church of England... so they changed the name. The Low Anglicans are less into the panoply and ritual.

This information comes from a spiritual dilettante ex who was raised Anglican and whose spirituality changes with his relationships. While I don't necessarily trust him as a source of truth - another friend whose information I do trust, confirmed this for me. If I have this wrong feel free to correct my misconception.

Pagerbear, have you ever gotten to sing in a cathedral? Talk about amazing acoustics. I got to do it as a little choir-girl. 40 years later and the memory still gives me a rush. It's the only thing that makes me miss being a Catholic.

[pagerbear]

29. Pagerbear is himself a "high Anglican"

Love singing in those big old cathedrals and churches. There are some amazings ones in NYC!

For the record, the Anglican church and the Roman Catholic church started at the same point when Henry VIII had his little snit fit and evolved in parallel. Henry VIII didn't want to change anything other than that nasty little rule about divorces!

[YellowRubberDuckie]

39. That was supposed to be funny.

Sorry...I failed miserably.
Duckie

[Screaming Lord Byron]

41. I gotcha.

[XNASA]

27. Mrs. XNASA & I were married in a Catholic Cathedral.

Holy Name Cathedral..



It was OK. We're still married.

[ProfessorGAC]

37. So Were Mrs. Professor & I

Actually had a bishop perform the ceremony. My parents were high muckimucks in the church. Go figure. I move away from the church at lightspeed when i was 14, and they were in the lay hierarchy.

I wonder if there's a correlation.
The Professor

[Screaming Lord Byron]

9. Ely's quite nice.

[Squeech]

11. They're beautiful

I've never seen them in person.

I've seen a bunch of famous churches in South America, but they're four or five centuries down the line-- a much less interesting architectural style IMHO.

My favorite gothic cathedral trivia comes from an old educational poster IBM used to distribute, a generation or so ago. It was a timeline of historical developments related to mathematics, and a bit of architecture was included. There were small photos of some of the key gothic cathedrals in Europe, and then a note about a cathedral built in the 12th century or so that collapsed of its own weight. IBM's deadpan text noted something like, "This established a limit on the size of Gothic cathedrals by the empirical method." :-)

[Screaming Lord Byron]

12. LOL! Check this out, the Lady Chapel of Westminster Abbey

[bif]

13. But France has better stained glass

By far.

[Screaming Lord Byron]

16. Sure. The French cathedrals are in a class of their own.

I'm sifting through the English to begin with.

[bif]

17. Check out Rheims

Chartres and Ste. Chapelle.

[burythehatchet]

43. I used to love to spend weekends in Chartres whe I lived in Paris

but what was really neat was living in the shadow of Sacre Coeur. Amazing vibe.

[scarlet_owl]

14. Those are some awesome pictures.

One day I might enough money to go and see them up close and personal. <sigh>

[Mrs_Beastman]

15. very nice

[Screaming Lord Byron]

18. Here's the Chapterhouse of Westminster Abbey.

[Maleficus]

20. Yes they do.

They have this eerie, ominous (kind of oxymoronic for a chruch, eh?), creepy appeal to them, and I love it!

[flamingyouth]

21. I love the Toledo cathedral in Spain

[JCMach1]

23. Cologne is awsome!!!

It Rulz...!

[ProfessorGAC]

34. Can You Imagine. . .

. . .some 14th century peasant seeing that for the first time?!?!?!?

The tallest thing those people ever saw was a tree, and then they see this, or Chartre.

Think those buildings are impressive to us? Think about how they would have been to someone who never saw a building over 30 feet tall! It'd be like us seeing a real alien spaceship for the first time.
The Professor

[Screaming Lord Byron]

35. That's the idea, isn't it?

Awe them with God.

[ProfessorGAC]

36. Yeah, I Know

But, still. I try to put myself in that mindset of seeing something that grand when you've got no other frame of reference. It had to be mindblower.
The Professor

[Screaming Lord Byron]

38. Absolutely, I didn't mean that in a pejorative sense.

[sir_captain]

25. Did you know that the largest cathedral in the world

The Cathedral of St. John the Divine, is on the upper west side of Manhattan? It's a truly beautiful spectacle...

[Joe Chi Minh]

30. Westminster

Catholic Cathedral is apparently based on Santa Sofia, and I love the design of the exterior and the huge suspended cross. But most of all, I love to hear plainchant. It somehow manages to convey great tenderness.

Cologne catheral *is* beautiful, as, incidentally, I also found was the sight of the barges, gliding down the Rhine, quite low in the water, if I remember correctly, usually with a family member or two in view.

[Screaming Lord Byron]

31. York Minster Chapterhouse.

[Screaming Lord Byron]

32. More York Minster.

[Screaming Lord Byron]

33. Woah! check out Ely.

[TrogL]

40. I've played all those pipe organs

at one time or another.

You wouldn't believe the stairs you have to climb to get up there.

[Screaming Lord Byron]

42. I could imagine. Any particular favourites?

[DonP]

44. Very nice pix!

I treated myself to a do-it-yourself two week "Cathedrals tour" in the UK a while back.

I started at Exeter a classic roman styled cathedral with traditional roman arches and wound up at Salisbury.

I visited Gloucester, Edinborough and several others too, including St. Paul's of course.

Salisbury was my favorite. I got there close to sunset and they were doing evening prayers. All us tourist types were invited to sit in the Choiry and join them. What an incredible time machine a cathedral is. Standing there looking at those magnificent windows and listening to the boys choir sent chills up my spine. It could have been 1275 instead of 1995.

I loved the Chagall window in the Nave that the RAF paid for to replace the window blown out by the German bombers in WWII.

The story is that they felt guilty letting "the bloody bastards through in their damnable Heinkels" and felt it was their responsibility to replace it. Chagall did an incredible job on that window.

If you haven't read it yet pick up a copy of Sarum, Rutherford's first book. It has a great section on the building of both cathedral's old Sarum and the "new" Salisbury cathedral.

[Screaming Lord Byron]

46. Yeah, I have 'London', so I should check out 'Sarum'.

[CBHagman]

45. And don't forget the cathedral at Bamberg (Germany)

Okay, so I'm cheating here, because the cathedral combines medieval and Romanesque architecture. But check out those four spires! Check out the depiction of the Last Judgment!

If you're ever in Bavaria (specifically, Franconia, where you find Nuremberg, etc.), be sure to visit the beautiful little city of Bamberg, which has numerous medieval and baroque buildings that are very much worth a look.

http://www.chr.mergler.bnv-bamberg.de/bamberg/bamberger_dom_1.htm

And I can't get enough of medieval cathedrals. At one point, I even had checks with the interiors of cathedrals depicted on them. Alas, that series is no longer made.